


1 AM

by nightswatch



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Fluff, M/M, Nightmares, Pre-Epilogue, The Raven King Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-29
Updated: 2016-06-29
Packaged: 2018-07-19 01:20:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,511
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7338793
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nightswatch/pseuds/nightswatch
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Adam's and Ronan's quest to find an adequate birthday present for Blue ends with a couple of sleepless nights.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1 AM

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Gaeara](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gaeara/gifts).



If Ronan had to guess, he’d say it’s 1 AM. It feels like 1 AM. There’s the 1 AM drowsiness, that feeling of having slept, only for a moment, of having drifted into a dream and out of it again, roused by something in the real world. That feeling of having skirted along the edges of something in the darkness. 

He’s still wearing his headphones, lopsided, the music faded into 1 AM silence. There’s a blanket draped over him that wasn’t there before. The telltale rustle of Adam doing his homework at Ronan’s desk tells him where that blanket came from.

Yes, it’s 1 AM. They’re at Monmouth and Adam is here and he’s still awake and hasn’t fallen asleep on a pile of books. Yet. On days when Ronan can’t will himself to sleep, he’d wake him at two, at three, coax him into bed with him. A handful of hours spent resting aren’t enough. Ronan doesn’t care about the hypocrisy of it. At least one of them should get some sleep. Ronan doesn’t like to admit it, but the chances of both of them spending at least a few hours of the night asleep are much higher when Adam is sleeping next to him, his breath tickling Ronan’s skin, an arm wrapped around him, warm and heavy and grounding.

Ronan turns over, pulls the blanket with him and cracks an eye open to sneak a glance at Adam. He’s bent over a book that Ronan hasn’t looked at in– he’s not sure how long it’s been, actually. Adam rubs his forehead, picks up the mug to his right, frowns – _empty_ – and puts it down again.

Almost involuntarily, Ronan sighs.

Adam looks up and sneaks a glance back at him. There’s a smile tugging at the corner of his lips. His eyes are tired, begging for some rest. 

Ronan slips out of bed and shuffles across the room to push the window open a few inches. Chainsaw is out there somewhere and he’ll give her a couple of minutes to come back inside.

“Parrish,” Ronan says. That’s it. He won’t tell him to go to bed; he’s not his babysitter. 

“In a minute,” Adam says. He leans back at his chair and watches Ronan, expectant, daring. They both know that it won’t be a minute, it’s never just a minute, so commenting would be superfluous. 

Stepping up behind him, Ronan peers over Adam’s head. “Looks fascinating.”

Adam tilts his head, just the tiniest bit. It’s an invitation if Ronan has ever seen one. He bends down, kisses the line of Adam’s jaw, his neck, lips brushing over stubble, teeth scraping over soft skin for the briefest of moments before he pulls away.

“I’m sure that it’ll still be fascinating tomorrow,” Ronan says and pads back over to his bed. He takes his shirt off on the way and chucks it at Adam. 

The air in his room has grown cold. He should have closed the window, but he’ll leave that for Adam. When he comes to bed. In a minute. Ronan burrows back under the blanket and listens to the rustle of paper and another thunk of the mug, possibly the last attempt to find coffee in a mug that has been empty for roughly two hours. 

And then, finally, there are footsteps, there’s the sound of the window sliding shut, the click of the lights being turned off, the dip of the mattress, a low huff when Adam finds Ronan in the middle of the bed.

“At least scoot over,” Adam grumbles.

Ronan doesn’t, so Adam has to wiggle under the covers and ends up pressed against him. Which was the plan all along. And what a great plan it was.

“It’s Blue’s birthday soon,” Adam says. Even his voice is tired. “We–”

“Shut up, Parrish. We can talk about that when it’s not fuck off o’clock in the morning.”

“Why, are you tired?”

_No, but you are._

Adam plants a kiss on Ronan’s back, his hands are everywhere. Ronan tries to be everywhere at once, tries to meet every touch halfway, tries to feel everything as Adam’s fingertips burn against his skin.  Ronan turns, halfway, far enough so he can find Adam’s lips and pull him into a lazy kiss. 1 AM has come and gone. Ronan meant to coax Adam into bed with him, to sleep, just sleep. Then Adam’s thumb drags across his lower lip and all the good intentions, as selfish as they were, fade into oblivion. 

Eventually, they’ll sleep. Eventually, they’ll talk. For now, Ronan lives in a world where Adam’s urgent touches are the only thing that exists. 

*

Ronan wakes up when something soft hits his face. 

“Get up, we’re gonna be late,” Adam says. 

“Do I look like I give a shit?” 

“I can’t tell, there’s something on your face.”

Rolling onto his stomach, Ronan groans. He flips Adam off, but his hands are under his pillow, so it doesn’t really have the intended effect. He blinks and finds a balled up Aglionby sweater next to his face.

“That’s the cleanest one I could find,” Adam says. 

Ronan looks up. Adam is standing in the middle of his room, dressed and sipping coffee. The window is open; Chainsaw is perched on the windowsill. Ronan picks up the sweater. It’s one of his and he has no idea where Adam has dug it up. It has happened before that he’s showed up at school wearing one of Adam’s, with frayed hems, not quite fitting him. No one has ever noticed. Except for Gansey. Gansey noticed, and smirked, and didn’t say a word. 

They’ve reached a point where Gansey doesn’t look scandalized anymore when Adam stumbles out of Ronan’s room at Monmouth, no matter what time of the day it is. He was never really scandalized in the first place; on some level he might have even expected it. It was merely his way of adapting to this. To _them_.

This morning, Gansey is nowhere to be found. Opal is still fast asleep in Noah’s old room. Ronan occasionally catches himself lingering in the door even when Opal isn’t inside. 

Somehow – it might have involved some minor miracles – Adam shoves him out the door fifteen minutes later. Fully dressed. Only mildly disgruntled. He swears a little. Loudly. Adam smiles. Ronan swears a little more. Adam gives him another shove and then a kiss and they’re on their way. It’s easier when it’s Adam who’s pushing him because Ronan is inclined to let him. He’s even more inclined when Adam smiles. He has to try his hardest not to be inclined to smile back at him. He doesn’t do that sort of thing this early in the morning. Not when they’re going to school. 

They take the BMW because it’s the only car in Ronan’s life that doesn’t break down quite literally every other day. Adam doesn’t complain about the music. When Ronan turns up the volume, Adam catches his hand and turns it down again. 

“So, where are we going?” Ronan asks. 

“Ronan.”

“What? We could go have breakfast somewhere.”

“Ronan.”

“Fine. I’ll drop you off at school. Nerd.”

“It’s just a few more months.”

“A few months too many.” Ronan keeps his fingers interlaced with Adam’s. Just a few more months. The Barns will wait, but Ronan is itching to go back every single day. Often enough he does go back. And often enough Adam finds in him the evening and steps up behind him and rests his head against Ronan’s shoulder blades and then he feels like he’s finally arrived at home. 

“I’ll come find you during lunch break,” Adams says.

“You’d better.”

“And afterwards we can go buy a present for Blue.”

That _we_ distracts Ronan for a moment. It’s a _we_ he’s not yet used to, even though many things that might have thrown him a few weeks ago are now commonplace. There’s a _we_ in everything he does these days. He finds himself considering Adam before he considers anyone or anything else. “A birthday present for Sargent,” Ronan says. He’s not bad at presents, but it’d be a bit of stretch to say that he’s good at them. “There’s not a fucking thing in the world that’d make a good enough present for her.”

“We’ll find something,” Adam says. 

*

“We’ll never find anything.”

Ronan bites down an _I told you so_. They are at the mall. Neither of them particularly likes it here. Adam isn’t a _mall_ sort of person. Ronan isn’t a _shopping_ sort of person. They won’t find a present for Blue Sargent at the mall. 

“Ronan,” Adam says. He looks exhausted. He sounds exhausted. Ronan wants to drag him home and pull him into bed and lie down on top of him so he won’t even think about getting up to study. 

“Hm?”

“We’re not gonna find anything here,” Adam says. He stares at a store window. Stationery. Notebooks. Pens. Blue might appreciate a nice glittery pen or a notebook covered in unicorns but it’s not good enough and they both know it. 

Ronan huffs and walks off. Adam is at his heels. They should check thrift stores, places that are nothing more than a hole in the wall, places that promise something out of the ordinary. 

On the escalator, Adam looks at him. Ronan looks back. They both pretend that they’re thinking about birthday presents, but Ronan is thinking about Adam’s lips, slightly parted, and he is thinking about his fingers, brushing his hair out of his face, and he is thinking about the wonder that Adam Parrish is, looking at Ronan like he, too, is entirely incomprehensible. 

Ronan, for a moment, forgets about the other people. He reaches out and tugs at Adam’s Aglionby sweater. Adam smiles at him. And for that moment only, Ronan doesn’t have it in him to hate the mall. Not when the mall is a place where Adam is smiling at him like that. 

“We could ask Opal to make her something.”

“Okay, but that’ll be Opal’s present,” Adam says. He nudges Ronan into the vague direction of the exit. “Well, we still have time to figure it out.”

Adam’s fingers curl around Ronan’s on the way to the car and it takes all of Ronan’s self-control not to stop in his tracks and kiss Adam breathless. There’s always some part of him that wants to look at Adam or touch Adam or just have Adam next to him, close to him, close enough to reach out if he wants to.

He lets go when they get to the car and Adam looks at him like he knows exactly how much Ronan wanted to hold on.

“What is Gansey getting her?” Adam asks.

“Something tacky,” Ronan replies. He has no idea what Gansey is getting for Blue, but it’ll be something ridiculous. He refuses to use Gansey’s ideas for inspiration. 

Adam laughs. Ronan hopes that he’ll never forget the sound of it. “Can you drop me off at work?” Adam asks.

Ronan wordlessly pulls out of the mall’s parking lot. Adam doesn’t have to be at work for another hour, but he always starts early whenever he can. Ronan doesn’t drop him off right in front of the garage. He parks the car next to a row of hedges that hides a junkyard.  He doesn’t have to explain why. Adam already knows what he’s up to, has already unbuckled his seatbelt and is already pulling Ronan closer by the collar of his shirt. Adam’s first kiss is gentle, the second one takes Ronan’s breath away.

“Are you going to the Barns?” Adam asks.

Ronan nods. “Do you want me to pick you up later?”

“I’ll be fine,” Adam says. “I left my bike here the last time you picked me up.” Another kiss and he’s out of the car.

As he drives away, Ronan turns up the music and goes back to Monmouth. Gansey is there with Blue and Opal. They’re playing cards, but Opal quickly abandons the game when Ronan tells them where he’s headed. Opal loves the Barns. Sometimes Ronan thinks that it’s where she belongs. 

It’s where he belongs, too. 

*

It’s 1 AM. Ronan can tell that it’s 1 AM because he’s wide away and he’s been staring at the clock on his nightstand for approximately an hour. 

He worked at the Barns until around ten and decided that going back to Monmouth wouldn’t make much sense. Adam wouldn’t have come by after work. He’s in his tiny room at the church right now. 

Ronan wants to think that Adam has gone to bed by now, but it’s 1 AM and if there’s nothing there to distract him, no one to grumble at him, if he manages to stay awake for long enough, Adam will be studying until three in the morning. Ronan almost wants to drive back to Henrietta, just to tell Adam to go to bed.

Almost.

His phone is on his nightstand, too. And a toy car. It’s the toy car that he picks up, turning the wheels, his eyes still on his phone. He thinks of Adam and he thinks of the day he kissed him, here, in this room. He thinks of his lips brushing over Adam’s knuckles. His fingers still and he puts down the car.

Ronan picks up his headphones and turns over, away from that car and his phone, away from his thoughts of Adam. He’s not Adam’s babysitter. But that won’t keep him from dragging him to Monmouth after school tomorrow and to pin him down on his bed. 

Maybe they’re actually going to get some sleep. 

*

Adam looks surprised to see him at school the next morning. And he looks tired. He looks like he hasn’t slept all night. 

Ronan gives him a nudge. Then he gives him a look when Adam tries to suppress a yawn. Gansey notices, too. He narrows his eyes, first at Adam, then at Ronan. They both look like they haven’t slept. What Gansey doesn’t know is that they were awake all night with a few miles of road between them. 

“Are you coming to Monmouth tonight?” Ronan asks Adam, ignoring Gansey. He’s distracted a moment later when Henry joins them anyway.

“I…” Adam blinks at him. “Sure. Why?”

Ronan doesn’t usually invite him. He knows that Adam will come over if he wants to or he will find Ronan at the Barns after work. And Ronan will show up at the church if he wants to. If it’s a bad time, they’ll stay out of each other's way. Ronan has waited hours lounging on Adam’s tiny bed, waiting for Adam to finally, _finally_  abandon his books. 

Ha casts a glance at Gansey, wondering what shade of red his face would turn if Ronan told Adam exactly what he wants to do with him tonight. In the end, he settles for, “Because I don’t want to sleep in that tiny as fuck bed of yours.”

“Fair enough,” Adam says. “I’ll come by after work.”

“Do you need a ride?”

“I’m good.” Adam pulls at Ronan’s sweater, pulls him away from Gansey and Henry and everyone else in the hallway and into an alcove where they’re hidden from prying eyes. 

Adam’s lips taste like coffee when he kisses him. He pulls away too quickly, already stepping back into the hallway. 

“Really?” Ronan asks.

“We’ll be late for Latin,” Adam says.

“Do I look like I care about Latin?”

“Come on…” Adam steps back into the alcove and kisses him one more time. “We’re going.”

“You’re going,” Ronan says. “I’m still considering my options.”

Adams rolls his eyes and walks away. Ronan follows him two seconds later. 

“I’ve been thinking about what we could get for Blue,” Adam says. 

“And?”

“And… I got nothing.”

“Fantastic,” Ronan says. He can’t say that he’s thought about it that much. Mainly, he’s been thinking about Adam. About Adam’s sleep schedule. About all the times that Adam has kissed him. Adam, who’s staring back at him like he knows that Ronan hasn’t thought about anything but him. Ronan clears his throat. “How about something that has a weird pattern on it. She likes weird patterns.”

“What, do you want to sew her a dress?”

“I wouldn’t go quite that far,” Ronan says. “What else does she like? Yoghurt? Trees?”

“Gansey,” Adam says.

“She already has one of those,” Ronan says dryly. 

Adam sighs. “It should be something special.”

“Something one of a kind, yeah,” Ronan says. He knows where Adam is going with this. The toy car on his nightstand comes to mind. “Give me a couple of days to think about it.”

The hallway is nearly empty. Gansey is waiting in the door to their classroom, raising his eyebrows in question as they approach. 

Ronan only shrugs and pushes past him. 

*

Ronan knows that Adam is at work. He also knows that Adam doesn’t leave work until he’s done for the day and that it does’t matter to him if everyone else has already gone home. But, just this once, Ronan wishes Adam would hurry up a little.

It’s late and Ronan has been roped into watching a movie with Henry, Gansey and Blue, the latter now curled up in Gansey’s lap. Opal is back in Noah’s room. The door is open a few inches and when Ronan tilts his head, he can see her sitting on the bed, leafing through old comic books.

Ronan takes another slice of pizza, mainly because he’s bored out of his mind and would rather go outside and take the BMW and aimlessly drive around with the windows down, but Adam will be here any minute so Ronan might as well watch that movie until he does.

Except that he’s not really watching it. He’s watching the door, mostly. Which isn’t something he used to do. It’s not something he’s ever thought he’d be doing. 

But Ronan likes seeing Adam walk in through that door.

Ronan has thought about asking Adam if he wants to dump all of his crap in Ronan's room at Monmouth and just leave behind that shitty room at the church and stay here for the time being, but Adam wouldn’t want that. Ronan isn’t sure if he would want that either. Maybe, after they graduate, Adam can spend the summer with him at the Barns before he goes to college. Ronan likes the thought of having Adam there with him, of falling asleep next to him every night and of waking up next to him every morning.

Ronan shifts on the couch. He’s restless today. Maybe it’s the lack of sleep, although he should be used to that by now. It’s an itch that can’t be scratched, the same sort of itch that so has him speeding through the night with the speakers blaring all too often. 

Adam is greeted loudly by everyone else on the couch when he finally comes in through the door. Ronan almost wants to grab him by the hand and tug him into his room, but there’s pizza and Adam looks like he could use something to eat. 

“Hey,” Adam says quietly. He drops his bag next to the couch and squeezes himself next to Ronan.

Ronan pulls at one of the pizza cartons. “Want some?”

Adam shakes his head. 

“No one else is going to eat it,” Ronan says.

“Fine,” Adam says and takes a slice. He talks to Blue and the movie is paused for a moment while they catch up and then Gansey presses play again and Adam rests his head against Ronan’s shoulder.

Ronan can hardly make Adam get up now as much as he'd like to get away from everyone else. Well, he could. But Adam is slumped against him like he has absolutely no will to move ever again, so Ronan puts his arm around him and Adam is fast asleep a few minutes later.

When the movie is over, Henry and Blue leave, saying their goodbyes as quietly as they can, and Gansey stares at Ronan and Adam like he’s seeing them for the first time.

“What?” Ronan asks.

“Nothing,” Gansey says. But it’s not nothing. “Is he okay?”

“He just doesn’t get enough sleep,” Ronan says. 

“Do you get enough sleep?”

Adam moves, only by a fraction, but it’s enough to keep Ronan from replying. He doesn’t want to wake Adam up, otherwise he’d ask Gansey how he is doing these days. Because Gansey died. Ronan doesn’t like to think about it, but Gansey was dead and he can’t imagine how that would help him sleep at night. It sure as hell doesn't. Ronan can see when he has the lights on in the middle of the night. 

Gansey purses his lips but doesn’t say anything. He picks up a book and starts to read. Ronan doesn’t move. He could just close his eyes and sleep as well, but he’s still restless and if he sleeps now, his dreams will be restless, too. 

“What time’s it?” Adam mumbles against Ronan’s neck half an hour later. 

“Nearly midnight,” Gansey says. 

“Nearly midnight,” Ronan echoes. He threads his fingers into Adam’s hair. “Bed?”

Adam hums and untangles himself from Ronan, picking up his bag on the way to Ronan’s room. Ronan trails after him and mutters a _good night_  at Gansey. 

Ronan kicks at the door and it clicks shut. His room is a mess as usual; Chainsaw is perched on his chair and Ronan opens the window for her. She leaves, clacking her beak, wings fluttering. 

“I still have to…” Adam is rummaging through his bag and eventually pulls out his Latin book.

“No,” Ronan says. He takes the book from him. Adam wasn’t holding on too tightly in the first place. “You can do that tomorrow.”

“But–”

“I didn’t ask you to come by so I could watch you do your homework,” Ronan says, arms snaking around Adam’s waist. “Just take a fucking break for once, Parrish.”

“Fine,” Adam whispers against Ronan’s lips. “ _Fine_.”

Ronan puts down Adam’s book with as much care as he can muster without letting go of Adam and then pulls him into bed with him. Adam kicks off his shoes on the way and lets out a puff of breath that tickles Ronan’s skin when his head hits the pillow. 

“What now?” Adam asks. He’s looking at Ronan through his eyelashes and Ronan isn’t sure if he’s ever loved looking at anything as much as he loves looking at Adam Parrish. 

“Close your eyes,” Ronan whispers to him, and Adam does. Ronan takes Adam's hand and kisses his knuckles and his fingertips and there’s a small smile on Adam’s face that he also has to kiss. 

He can't remember the last time he's seen Adam look this relaxed. Ronan keeps his fingers curled around Adam’s hand, thumb running across his palm. It’s only a matter of moments until Adam has drifted off to sleep. 

Watching Adam, listening to his even breathing, it quells the restlessness in Ronan. Minutes tick by and Ronan keeps his eyes on Adam.

When 1 AM rolls around, they’re both fast asleep. 

*

On Saturday morning, Ronan goes back to the Barns. Adam is in the passenger seat; Opal is in the back, reading a book that Blue has brought her. Ronan isn’t sure who taught Opal how to read or if she can read simply because he can read. 

Adam, too, has a book open in his lap. At first he didn’t want to come at all, but Ronan told him that he could do his homework at the Barns and he’d even have a proper coffee machine there. So Adam is in the passenger seat, studying, making the occasional frustrated noise, his brow furrowed. Today Adam didn't let him turn on the music.

At the Barns, Ronan leaves Adam in the kitchen and makes sure Opal is taken care of – she’s elected the attic as her new playground. He stops in the door to the kitchen for a moment on his way outside. Adam has already spread his books all over the kitchen table. It takes him a few seconds to notice that Ronan is looking at him.

“I’ll be outside,” Ronan says. 

Adam nods and smiles and Ronan takes a detour so he can kiss him before he leaves.

Ronan spends most of the day outside, taking care of repairs, and actually gets a lot more work done than expected. During lunch, he had to drag Adam away from his books, so when he’s done with what he’d meant to do, Ronan stays outside for a little while longer, giving Adam some more time before Ronan barges in and asks questions about dinner.

Being here feels like being in a dream. 

His deer are hovering at the edge of the trees and Ronan sits down on the fence to watch them. He stays until clouds start to gather overhead, until raindrops threaten to fall. 

When he gets back inside, Adam’s books are in a neat stack on the kitchen table and he’s cooking pasta. Opal is putting together a puzzle on the floor. 

“I figured you might be hungry,” Adam says when Ronan peers over his shoulder. “Actually, I thought you might have fallen asleep somewhere out there and that I’d have to go looking for you.”

Ronan huffs and kisses the back of Adam’s neck. “Do you want to stay here tonight? I can take you back to Henrietta if you want, but there’s some stuff I want to take care of tomorrow, so…”

“I don’t mind staying,” Adam says.

They have dinner together and afterwards Opal keeps working on her puzzle until she starts yawning. Ronan doesn’t even have to tell her to go to bed.

Ronan and Adam relocate to the living room and Ronan remembers their first night here. He makes sure that Adam does as well.

“I think I know what to get for Blue,” Ronan says later when they head up the stairs to his room. It’s a slow ascent. Adam has an arm wrapped around him and Ronan can’t stop kissing him. “I’ll try tonight.”

As it turns out, tonight is not a night for pulling presents out of dreams. Tonight something moves in the shadow of a forest. Tonight something dark is at Ronan’s heels.

Ronan knows this feeling of being in a dream and he knows what it means when shadows move. He also hasn’t forgotten that Adam is sleeping next to him tonight. Ronan can’t bring anything back that could hurt him. 

Something cracks behind him. 

He runs.

Running, of course, won’t do Ronan any good. He can’t outrun a nightmare. His nightmares are everywhere, lurking behind every single tree. Still, he runs. Hands balled into fists, he stumbles and ducks behind a stone, hands pressed against his eyes, and he breathes. 

_Wake up, wake up_. 

He needs to wake up and he can’t bring anything back. There’s an inhuman screech, then silence, then something pads across the soft forest ground. Leaves crunch.

_Wake up_. 

“Ronan,” someone whispers, and then, louder, “wake up. _Ronan_.”

Ronan jerks back into consciousness, but he can’t move, he can’t, all he can see is Adam, his face illuminated by a faraway light, hovering over him, his hand warm against Ronan’s chest. 

“It’s okay,” Adam says.

Ronan wants to tell him that he knows that it’s okay, but he can’t talk yet. He just breathes. There’s nothing in his hands, but as soon as he feels he can move them he checks that there really is nothing, nothing at all, nothing with claws, nothing that could hurt them. 

Adam takes Ronan’s hands in his. “It’s okay,” he says again. His hair is dishevelled, his eyes are bleary. The lamp on the nightstand is on and Ronan wonders how long Adam has been trying to wake him up. 

Ronan only nods. It’s okay. 

It’s 1 AM and he can’t go back to sleep. Adam knows and Ronan hates to keep him up, except that he loves to keep him up. Adam rolls on top of him. 

It’s 1 AM and neither of them is even thinking about going back to sleep. 

*

The following Thursday, Adam catches up with him in the hallway on the way to lunch, which is pretty much the only thing about being at school that Ronan doesn’t find completely unbearable. Unless Adam pulls him into alcoves. There's nothing better than Adam pulling him into alcoves. “We only have three days to get Blue a present,” Adam says.

“I know,” Ronan replies. The hallway is deserted; everyone has already left for lunch, including Gansey and Henry. When Ronan is sure that no one is listening in, he adds, “I nearly had it last night, but it just wasn’t right yet.”

“Do you think maybe tonight you can not act like a terrible perfectionist and just take it?” Adam asks. He’s smiling. Ronan cannot under any circumstances like it here at school just because Adam is smiling at him like that. 

Ronan shrugs it off. “Fine.”

“Good,” Adam says, “Or we can find something else.”

“No, I’ll do it,” Ronan says. No nightmares tonight. It’s easier said than done, of course, but he’ll get it together. He looks at Adam for a long moment. Adam is wearing one of Ronan’s sweaters today, which is most likely why the only one Ronan could find this morning was the one in his car, with frayed hems and the raven emblem coming off. Ronan is inclined to keep this one. “Can you come over tonight?”

“Okay,” Adam says. He looks up and down the hallway, finds it empty, and gives Ronan a kiss.

Ronan kisses him back. Today he’s the one who pulls Adam into an alcove.

*

It’s 1 AM when they find Blue Sargent a birthday present. Well. It’s Ronan who finds it. It’s Adam who’s curled up next to him, it’s Adam who’s holding him, it’s Adam’s hair that Ronan feels between his fingers before he falls asleep, it’s Adam’s breath on his skin and Adam’s warmth against his body. It’s Adam who’s keeping the nightmares away. 

Adam is there in his dream. He’s sitting on the forest ground, legs crossed. Ronan sits down next to him. They don’t talk. 

It’s right there in front of him today. Ronan doesn’t even have to look for it. A gentle breeze ruffles Adam’s hair and the leaves overhead rustle. A soft melody intermingles with the wind. Nothing moves in the shadows. Today there aren’t any shadows at all. Ronan turns away from Adam and kneels down next to the sapling that is growing out of the ground. He’s not sure how he knows that today it’s just right, but it is. Ronan digs it up with his hands. 

The Adam in his dream nods. 

Ronan nods back at him and cradles the sapling to his chest. _Wake up_. 

He blinks into the darkness of his room. He hears the ruffle of feathers. Adam is next to him, sitting up, staring down at him with raised eyebrows. He doesn’t say anything just yet. 

Ronan sits up as well. There are crumbs of dirt all over the sheets and his hands are caked in mud. The sapling looks exactly like it did in his dream. 

Adam turns on the light. “Is that…?”

“A tree.”

“A tree?”

“It will be when it grows up,” Ronan says. He touches the leaves. It’s small, small enough so he could dig it up. “Listen…” He blows at the tree and when the leaves move, their rustling sounds like a dozen wind chimes. 

Adam smiles. “A tree,” he says and there’s admiration in it. “She’s gonna love it.”

“You can pick out a pot for it,” Ronan says. He puts it in a bowl that he’s set down on the windowsill, just in case. It’ll have to do for now.

Gansey isn’t sleeping when Ronan sneaks out of his room to wash the dirt off his hands. For a second, he looks like he wants to ask what on earth has happened to Ronan, but changes his mind and only gives him a look that says something like _I’m not actually surprised_  before goes back to reading his book. One of these days, Ronan is going to have to ask Gansey if he sleeps at all.

Adam has shaken most of the dirt off Ronan’s bed when he returns. Ronan takes the bowl with the sapling and puts it next to the open window and when he climbs back into bed and scoots closer to Adam, he can hear the soft chimes of its leaves.

Next to him, Adam breathes deeply. _Cabeswater_. Ronan can smell it, too. 

One of these days, Ronan is going to find a new home for Cabeswater. Until then… “I can get you one as well,” Ronan says. He kisses Adam’s shoulder. “A different one, maybe.”

“I’d like that,” Adam says. 

**Author's Note:**

> Kudos and comments are very much appreciated :)


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